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When should I launch my eBook?

When should I launch my eBook?

Unfortunately it’s one of those questions that requires an “it depends” response…

Today I want to share my thoughts on this, with a little bit more detail than my usual two word response.

There are essentially 4 factors I consider when thinking about when should I launch an eBook. They’re not mutually exclusive factors, they work together to help me identify the ideal time to launch and are:

My target market

Time of year

Buyer mindset

Competition

My Target Market

This is probably the most important factor because it drives relevance to everything else. When you’re considering the factors of ‘time of year’ your thinking what is happening at different stages of the year with your customers, not those of others.

Think very carefully about who they are and where they are. That said, you should already know this, long before you started writing your eBook!

Time of year

Once we know our target market, we can then look at what’s happening during the year. Your attempting to find the period where they are thinking most about the problem your book is solving. For example if I’m launching a ‘how to entertain your kids during holidays’ eBook and I’m targeting Australia. I’ll want to know when a the biggest holiday periods are, then looking at potential dates just before when partents are stressing about what they’ll do next weel. Another example might be an eBook about setting up a business. This might call for some research to find the time of year where most businesses are created.

Put simply: When is my target market more likely to be thinking about the problem I solve.

Buyer mindset

If you don’t have an obvious time of year, or have multiple options to pick from, another consideration I make is to look at when people are actively spending, either on themselves or others. This can be spending in general, or specifically on eBooks or your niche. The lead up to Christmas and other holidays are times people seem to be in more buying moods. These are obvious ones, but you can think a little deeper about your specific topic. If I was producing a horse dressage eBook for the UK audience, I would have launched it just after the Olympics where people were inspired by the royal performance.

It’s also worth considering that the obvious targets, Christmas, back to school, are periods everyone wants to own. Because they are so lucrative. We’ll talk about competition next, but if you’re small in a competitive market, it might be better to launch in a quieter period with less noise, giving you a greater chance of being heard.

Put simply: When is my target market more likely to be buying eBooks on my topic.

Competition

Whilst I don’t like looking over my shoulder all that often, for launch dates I make an exception. If you’ve got healthy competition in your niche, don’t assume for second that they’re not doing everything above. So do your competitive research, tune into newsletters, twitter feeds, to try to get a feel for what they are launching an when.

If you can pull the trigger a week or two early you might be able to grab the one purchase of overlapping customers. That said, if you’re competition beats you, all is not lost – you should have a unique selling proposition, a difference in the market so don’t let your fast moving competitors freeze you into inactivity.

Put simply: When are promotional messages more likely to be heard.

Thinking in launch day, and launch month

Using the above you might have a target month or even target week. Once you have that you need to narrow this down to the ideal day. For the products I’ve sold, I’ve always loved Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Remembering that these days suited MY target audience. My advice here is to once again find the day people are thinking about to problem you solve, not actually experiencing it.

The second part to this is make sure there no special event in the counties you’re targeting. Public holidays are unique country to country, state to state, so make sure you don’t launch on a day everyone’s mind is off somewhere else.

4 Things not to think about (if possible)

We don’t all live in a perfect world with the flexibility to do what we want, so the below are three things that you shouldn’t concern yourself with, but only if it’s possible.

Cash now

Easier said than done, but if you can, don’t pick a launch day because you want to income right now. Do it only if you need the money right now. Sacrificing on the ideal launch date for cash flow might cost you a stack of launch momentum, which could cost you for months and perhaps years to come.

What the other person did

Don’t launch on the same month and day that someone else did, just because they were successful. Think more about the above, and if all the indicators draw you to that conclusion great, but don’t make the assumption that what worked for them will work for you. They’re likely to have different customers with different circumstances than you.

Wait until it’s perfect

This is more a product problem than a launch problem, but delaying the launch until the eBook is ‘perfect’ will send you to the poor house. The best time to launch your product was probably last year, so if you keep putting things off to perfect your book, you’ll never take it to market as there is not such thing as a perfect book. In two words — ship it!

Not a quick answer, but I hope it helps

You hopefully can see why it’s not a quick answer, but a solvable one with a bit of thought and focus on what’s relevant to your target customers. Good luck with your own launch!

Comments (3)

I am actually launching my first eBook this Friday, February 1. Coincidently I did all of the points you mentioned long before I found this post so I am really hoping it will make a difference when it comes to the day. I am a little impatient now that because I finally have everything how I want it and I am not sure if I should launch it early. I have promoted the hell out of my on sale date being Feb 1 and I am wondering what the repercussions would be if I put it on sale a couple of days early. Is it a bad idea or could it work in my favour?

If it’s ready, then a couple of days won’t hurt. But ‘day of the week’ is something you also need to think about. 1st is a Friday, which is my least favorite day to launch. So a few days early might be just what the doctor ordered.